Ma’agar Mochot (brain trust) poll conducted for the Channel 10 morning news program Tuesday reveals that the “Likud Beiteinu” list has preserved its wide lead over everyone else in the running. At the same time, former Kadima chair Tzipi Livni, who is about to announce her run at the helm of a new, center-left party, today at noon, Israel time, will receive as many as 9 seats, while the former king of the center-spot, journalist and TV host Yair Lapid, is crashing.

If the elections were held today, according to MM, the Likud-Beiteinu block would get 37 seats, which is 5 short of its current combined strebgth in the outgoing Knesset. Labor would get 20 seats, Shas 14, and Jewish Home, the National Religious party, 9 seats.

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Tzipi Livni, who was deposed by Shaul Mofaz from the leadership of the Kadima party, is expected to announce a comeback at a press conference today, and the poll already gives her 9 seats, at the expense of prime minister wannabe Yair Lapid, whose list “Yesh Atid” (There is a future), whose future now appears murky with a mere 5 seats (down from 11 and 13 in earlier polls).

Mofaz and Kadima are not expected to make it into the Knesset this time around.

The Jewish far-left would maintain its 3-seat hold.

At the same time, should Tzipi Livni announce today that she will be running on the Labor list, then Likud-Beiteinu gets 38 seats, the fortified Labor goes up to 25, and Yair Lapid gets 8 seats.

Clearly, Tzipi Livni has a lot more to gain from running on her own, with eyes at a possible coalition government with Labor.

But, alas, such a coalition could not happen in the foreseeable future, not based on this morning’s poll, since the right-wing block is expected to collect 70 seats, based on today’s poll, while the center-left, including the Arab lists, would have 50 seats at most.

Surprisingly, 44 percent of those asked said they think Ehud Barak should stay on as defense minister, as opposed to 39% who’d like to see someone else in that post.

7 COMMENTS

I have great confidence in the abilities of the politicians to make a post-election hash out of the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box. But the Likud members have made it quite a bit harder for Bibi to veer left in coalition negotiations. I believe that we will see an all-time record of frum Knesset members both in the Likud and in the Knesset as a whole. That can only help. Nonetheless I would rather have a Likudnik without a kipa (Sa'ar) as education minister than a leftist rabbi from Lapid's party (Piron). Lapid has expressed the non-negotiable demand that Lieberman not be the defense min. I say great, I want Boogie Ya'alon. Meanwhile the coming days will tell whether I vote Likud with Feiglin, the Bayit Yehudi with Naftali Bennett (English-speaking childhood oleh from S. Francisco) or Ben-Ari and Eldad. They are all good and all will find their places in the new constellation. Morning in Israel, nightfall in America. Jews come home!

Maybe a religious education minister might bring some sense to Israel's crazy educational system in which the religious schools shortchange students in secular education, the non-religious schools shortchange students in Jewish education, and the Arab schools are shortchanged in general. Has there ever been a religious education minister?

Sure, Zevulun Hammer z"l of the NRP under Begin. He was pretty good, but he couldn't solve all the problems, and at the time there were those who wished for a Sa'ar type Herutnik his kipa in his back pocket instead of a dos.

Sure, Zevulun Hammer z"l of the NRP under Begin. He was pretty good, but he couldn't solve all the problems, and at the time there were those who wished for a Sa'ar type Herutnik his kipa in his back pocket instead of a dos.